Wednesday, March 25, 2015

I finished a small painting today, a smaller version of "Big Clouds Over the Beach." I guess you could call this "Mini Big Clouds." I wanted to see if I could do another one like it since I didn't make notes on colors, brushes or technique on the larger one. Well, if you scale down the size I learned that you need to scale down the brushes. I had a lot of trouble with the foreground water in this one, but didn't on the first one. Maybe I should stick to 9 x 12" instead of 5 x 7." I could probably keep adjusting things, but decided to just quit while I'm slightly ahead. I did coat the canvas board with several layers of gesso so it would be smoother. I think it helped some. There is still some glare from scanning and I probably should try to take a photo, but I'm not having any luck with that either. I tried Carol Marine's instructions for taking photos of paintings, but haven't found a good spot for lighting yet.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Here's another beach scene, but I'm not as happy with it as I was with "Big Clouds Over the Beach." It is smaller, 8" X 8" and done on a different texture canvas board. I did the Big Clouds painting on an older canvas board that is no longer available (Grumbacher) and it was really nice to paint on. I probably need to switch to gessoed artboard, but I have a lot of the regular Fredrix canvas panels in all sizes. I need to figure out how to make them smooth so I can use them. I'm working on that. It's a good thing I used the old canvas panel when I did Big Clouds or I might have given up on acrylics. I also need to make notes of which brushes I used for what and what colors I mixed to get the colors I got.

About Me - Melanie Dacko Cooper

Objective

I am starting this blog as a record for me and my family and as a challenge to myself--to keep painting.

I will try to remember any art work that I did that I sold or gave away and possible location and post photos if I have them.

The challenge part of this blog for me will be to compare what I did when I was quite a bit younger to what I can do now. Have I gotten any better? I think I am better at some things, but may have also lost some skills. Please feel free to comment.

The images reproduced in this blog are copyrighted by the artist, Melanie D. Cooper. All rights reserved.